RUSSIA/UKRAINE

We recently stumbled across this remarkable article from 1988! in the journal Imprimis, and when we read it, we could scarcely believe our eyes. When we started asking people about it, we heard different things - one person said this has been disproven, others said it was true and that they knew eye-witnesses who were deported.

Apparently the British government sued Tolstoy when he made these charges in an attempt to shut him up. We don't know if the charges are true or not, but it makes for extraordinary reading, and I appeal to people who know something about this to please help us fill out our knowledge in the comments section below. It is situations like this where our commentors are simply invaluable.

Webmaster's Commentary:

This sad chapter of history was briefly referred to in the James Bond movie, "Golden Eye."

The annual Munich Security Conference (MSC) will take place on February 16-18. No doubt the participants will paint Russia as a bully who is responsible for each and every thing that is going wrong, while the “innocent” West is calling for restraint and is ready to go to any length to preserve peace on earth.

The West is innocent? Russia is a bully and a threat? This is the right time to look at recent events to see what’s really happening. The US 2019 draft budget released on Feb. 12 asks Congress to approve over $6.3 billion for the US-led NATO European Reassurance Initiative (ERI). In other words, this money is to be spent on a military build-up near Russia’s borders.

Over the past few days, the "dispute" between NATO and Russia over the latter’s deployment of Iskander-M rockets in its own Kaliningrad region has heated up. In particular, on February 14th, NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg urged Russia to be “transparent,” although he also admitted that Moscow had announced its missile deployments to its border region a few years ago. In other words, Stoltenberg’s recent statement on the matter bore no semblance of transparency.

Meanwhile, Russia is working to make this “issue” a transparent one. I believe it to be no coincidence that on last Sunday, February 11th, the popular program Voennaia priomka on the Zvezda TV channel of Russia’s Ministry of Defense, discussed in detail the tactical and technical characteristics of Iskander missile complexes.

Webmaster's Commentary:

Russia is adding these missiles in response to the NATO missile buildup along Russia's borders, including the installation of US "Aegis Ashore" systems.

The Russian ombudsman for children has supported a recently drafted bill imposing life sentences for pedophilia, but added that the creation of a nationwide register of offenders was also necessary.

“We consider it important to continue work on a register of persons who have committed sex crimes against minors and other illegal acts, which would allow them to be monitored for the rest of their lives,” Anna Kuznetsova wrote on her Facebook page.

“We also support such measures as restricting internet access and tougher sanctions for violations of various bans during the administrative period for which they are imposed.”

The ombudsman added that, in her opinion, any bills that protect the safety of children should be passed as quickly as possible.

Thirteen Russian nationals allegedly involved in an information warfare operation to interfere in the 2016 presidential election were indicted by Special Counsel Robert Mueller.

The indictment [PDF] claims the Internet Research Agency engaged in a conspiracy from 2014 to the present that was funded by Yevgeniy Viktorovich Prigozhin and companies he controlled, including Concord Management and Consulting and Concord Catering.

Beyond already known allegations related to Russians creating false U.S. personas on social media, it alleges the Russian nationals traveled, or attempted to travel, to the U.S. Aleksandra Yuryevna Krylova and Anna Vladislavovna Bogacheva stopped in Nevada, California, New Mexico, Colorado, Illinois, Michigan, Louisiana, Texas, and New York to “gather intelligence.”

Webmaster's Commentary:

OK, other than sanctioning businesses these people own, how, please, does Meuller expect to prosecute these people, when it is a darn near moral certainty that Russia will not extradite them for court appearances in the US?!?

Is this not a rather pyrrhic victory for Meuller, when he knows he cannot prosecute, and so far, I can see nothing that even smacks of being "evidence" which ties these individuals to the Russian government.
That is what Meuller, with the millions of dollars spent on this investigation, so far has been incabable of proving.

And unless he can and will prove a true Russian government connection to this infowar, I would politely suggest that he hold off on sanctioning the country of Russia per se.

Most of it consists of unremarkable information that can be found in standard, non-censored texts. [For details, see comments.]

Agree with author Solzhenitsyn or not, but recognize the fact that he is no lightweight. Solzhenitsyn goes into considerable detail about many different historical epochs, and clearly has a deep knowledge of the issues that he raises. His approach is balanced. He is sympathetic towards Jews as well as critical of Jews.

The latter evidently does not sit well with many, because it does not comply with the standard Judeocentric narrative, in which Jews are just victims and can do no wrong. Worse yet, a famous writer is bringing sometimes-unflattering information about Jews to light, and this is threatening. Hence the censorship.

Amongst themselves, the Jews are quite candid about their sympathy for and involvement in Bolshevism.

On 4 April 1919 the Jewish Chronicle: “There is much in the fact of Bolshevism itself, in the fact that so many Jews are Bolshevists, in the fact that the ideals of Bolshevism at many points are consonant with the finest ideals of Judaism.”

(Perhaps this explains why the Red Army uses a Jewish star as its symbol?)

Probably the best-known exposé of the Jewish role in the Bolshevik coup d’état was by Sir Winston Churchill, writing in the Illustrated Sunday Herald of 8 February 1920. Churchill wrote “With the notable exception of Lenin, the majority of leading figures are Jews. Moreover the principal inspiration and the driving power comes from Jewish leaders.”

Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said Russia was never a "hostage" to expectations of Donald Trump's presidency in the United States, suggestions that Moscow bet on him at the 2016 election and lost are speculation.

"I would not say that we were hostage to some expectations. There is much speculation at the moment on the issue of Russia ‘betting’ on Trump and losing," Lavrov told Euronews, Sputnik reported.

The Minister added that a number of Russian politicians and activists had indeed made statements in support of Trump's presidency, however the country's leadership had never placed any stake on any candidates.

***Jim Jatras, political analyst and former US diplomat instead believes that the indictment is just an attempt to keep Americans from questioning the behavior of their government.

"Over the past few weeks we have seen so much about how the Justice Department, the FBI, the State Department and the CIA have been mixed up — by the way I would include MI6 and Government Communications Headquarters as being involved in this — [in] trying to subvert the rule of law… this is an attempt to come back and say ‘Never mind all this, look at that">>>

The US Justice Department filed charges against more than a dozen Russian persons and entities for trying to influence the 2016 US presidential contest which prompted cries for more sanctions on Moscow and demands for better election security.

The defendants intentionally conspired with each other to defraud the United States by undermining the democratic process in the country, the court document added.
The Russian individuals engaged in organizing rallies and paid Americans to participate in political activities and promote campaigns. The defendants communicated with members of Trump's campaign who were unaware of their motives, according to the indictment.

A Russian Internet agency and more than a dozen Russians interfered in the 2016 US election campaign in a multi-pronged effort to support Donald Trump and disparage rival Hillary Clinton, the US Special Counsel said in an indictment today.

Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova wrote in a post on Facebook: “13 people interfered in the US elections?! 13 against an intelligence services budget of billions? Against intelligence and counterintelligence, against the latest developments and technologies? Absurd? Yes.”

US indictment of 13 Russian nationals and three entities over alleged meddling in American elections in 2016 has been labelled absurd by the Russian Foreign Ministry spokesperson, Maria Zakharova.

Webmaster's Commentary:

I agree. The hypocrisy is astounding that Mueller goes after these Russians with no evidence to back up his claims while he continues to ignore Uranium-gate, Foundation-gate, and the fact that it was Hillary Clinton, not Donald Trump, who colluded with the Russians.

Special counsel Robert Mueller has indicted 13 Russian nationals and three Russian entities for allegedly meddling in the 2016 presidential election, charging them with conspiracy to defraud the United States, the Department of Justice has announced.

In addition, three defendants were charged with conspiracy to commit wire fraud and bank fraud, and five defendants with aggravated identity theft.
Mueller has been investigating Russian interference in the 2016 election as well as any connections between Russia and Trump campaign associates.

Beginning as early as 2014, the Russian organization Internet Research Agency began operations to interfere with the US political system, including the 2016 elections, according to the indictment, which was released by Mueller's office Friday.

The defendants allegedly posed as US persons, created false US personas, and operated social media pages and groups designed to attract US audiences, the indictment reads.

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A White House statement on Thursday said: “In June 2017, the Russian military launched the most destructive and costly cyber-attack in history. The attack, dubbed ‘NotPetya,’ quickly spread worldwide, causing billions of dollars in damage across Europe, Asia, and the Americas. It was part of the Kremlin’s ongoing effort to destabilize Ukraine and demonstrates ever more clearly Russia’s involvement in the ongoing conflict. This was also a reckless and indiscriminate cyber-attack that will be met with international consequences.”

The announcement came hours after the UK government made a similar statement.

It is no secret that Palestinian trust in Washington as an impartial broker and mediator in future peace talks with Israel has been shredded.

And given the Trump administration’s reckless, not to mention illegal, decision to declare Washington’s recognition of Jerusalem as Israel’s capital in December 2017, who can blame them?

This historic rupture with Washington on the part of the Palestinian Authority was articulated by President Mahmoud Abbas, at the start of talks with Russian President Vladimir Putin and Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov in Moscow.

Life continues in Ukraine. It seems obvious, since time is the same everywhere, but since the coup d'état in 2014, we have barely heard about Ukraine. Practically everything related to the civil war that ravages the east of the country or the Russian occupation of Crimea goes unnoticed except for some sporadic article about the government.

On February 4 groups of citizens took to the streets -they were protesting- the truth is that it is nothing new, from Yanukovych's death rattles, the citizens dissatisfied with their state and the governing body have increased, until becoming an almost weekly.

In this particular case the citizens left in the city of Kiev, and protested against the so-called 'Druzhyna Nacional', an umbrella organization parallel to the state, which they are assuming, in some cities, or treating it in others, to take over the work of the police.

Sophie Mangal appears to be a pseudonym for pro-Syrian journalists, as exhaustively explained in this recent Counterpunch article.

The Washington Post tried to make a big deal about this, claiming that this was smoking gun evidence of Kremlin Trolls in action!, in their Christmas day article Kremlin trolls burned across the Internet as Washington debated options.

In accordance with an energy cooperation framework agreement signed in late January, Russia will have exclusive rights to produce oil and gas in Syria.

The agreement goes significantly beyond that, stipulating the modalities of the rehabilitation of damaged rigs and infrastructure, energy advisory support, and training a new generation of Syrian oilmen. Still, the main international aspect and the key piece of this move is the final and unconditional consolidation of Russian interests in the Middle East.

Turkey will sign an agreement with Russia for the second S-400 missile defense system regiment in 2020, a Russian official said Wednesday.

"After the delivery of the first regiment is completed in May-June 2020, the parties plan to sign a new contract on the delivery of the second S-400 regiment in 2021. The list of supplies will be similar to the one included in the first contract," the unnamed official told Russian news agency TASS.

The source also said the new deal will include partial localization of production with some Turkish firms manufacturing certain "non-crucial" parts of the S-400 systems.

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What exactly happened a week ago in the village of Khusham in eastern Syria? Have hundreds of Russian mercenaries been killed in an operation by the US military, as has been speculated for days in Russia? Or are such reports just a fake news campaign, which is how it has been represented by Moscow? The answer to this question will determine whether the already strained relationship between the US and Russia will be put to the test again, with unpredictable consequences. The search for the truth is particularly difficult, because there are no reliable findings.

In an interview with Fox News host Sean Hannity, House Intelligence Committee chairman Devin Nunes said that there was indeed collusion in the 2016 presidential election and it did indeed involve actors from Russia. The only problem with the mainstream narrative, in fact, is that they are looking at the wrong party. Nunes said that Democrats were running scared from his controversial memo because they know a “counterintelligence investigation should have been opened up against the Hillary campaign.”

“We have a clear link to Russia,” Nunes said. “You have a campaign who hired a law firm, who hired Fusion GPS, who hired a foreign agent, who then got information from the Russians on the other campaign.”

Only a week after the United States killed “scores” of Russian contractors in Syria, 15 more Russians have been killed in country as a result of an alleged explosion at a weapons depot run by the private contracting company...

The leadership of Turkey, Iran, and Russia have all agreed to attend an upcoming summit in Istanbul on the topic of Syria, with the date for the meeting to be decided soon. Looming large over this is US relations.

Those three nations have met in the past on trying to get a peace process going in Syria, but right now the big issue on all their minds is increasing hostility from the US.

Turkey’s invasion of northern Syrian Kurdish territory has them facing potential conflict with US troops embedded in Manbij. The Pentagon has made clear their presence in Syria is at least in part intended now to fight Iran, and over the past week, US forces killed scores of Russians in the east.

OF COURSE there’s a Deep State. Why wouldn’t there be? Even a cursory understanding of human nature tells us that power corrupts, as Lord Acton put it; that, when power is concentrated and entrenched, it will be abused; that, when it is concentrated and entrenched in secrecy, it will be abused in secret. That’s the Deep State.

Ukrainian coal miners of the Ukrainian company "Selidovugol", in the occupied territory of the DPR, have blocked two main roads in both directions - they reasonably demand payment of their wages, which have not been paid in some time.

This was reported by the head of the independent trade union of miners of Ukraine, Mikhail Volynets.

"At the moment, miners and their families have blocked two roads in both directions from the city of Selidovo. The first one leads to Kurakhovo, Marinka and Krasnogorovka and is of great strategic importance, especially for the Ukrainian military. The second leads towards Novogrodovka," Volynets said.

The buses that transported miners to the second shift of the day were also blocked. They are being prevented from working the mines.

"The Ukraine should prepare to destroy the Russian Black Sea Fleet in the event of an invasion."

This was stated by the British Colonel Glen Grant, who previously worked as an adviser in the Ministry of Defense of Ukraine and is the author of a resonant article on the problems in the Ukrainian army.

"Naval forces as a structure must be taken very seriously. You have already lost your main port and oil wells, that was a huge part of the national wealth. And your vulnerability from the sea is greater than anywhere else" he said in an interview with the Ukrainian media.

The US Department of Defense has commented on the incident with the air strike in Syria, during which soldiers of the Russian private military company "Wagner" were killed.

The Pentagon explained that they had struck a blow in self-defense. The Americans accused the "hostile forces" of a "provocative and coordinated attack" on the position of the Kurdish group "Syrian Democratic Forces", where US advisers were present.

The American side contacted Russian officials and stated that such incidents are unacceptable. After that, a massive counter-attack began with the use of the B-52 strategic bomber, the flying artillery battery AC-130, as well as MQ-9 drones, F-15 fighters and AH-64 helicopters.

Saudi King Salman bin Abdulaziz Al Saud and Russian President Vladimir Putin discuss the developments in the Middle East, including the situation in Syria and tensions with Qatar.

According to the Kremlin’s press service, Putin and Salman exchanged views over Syria via a phone conversation on Wednesday, “taking into account the results of the Syrian National Congress in Sochi.”

Russia, Iran, and Turkey have been organizing peace talks for Syria in the Kazakh capital of Astana since January 2017. Together, the three countries have been acting as guarantor states for the peace process in the war-torn Arab country.

Russia says it plans to participate in the initial public offering of the shares of Saudi Arabia’s energy giant Aramco in partnership with a joint investment fund China.

Kirill Dmitriev, chief executive officer of the Russian Direct Investment Fund, was quoted as saying by media that several Russian banks would also join the scheme which could proceed later this year.

“Not only this, but we have a Russia-China investment fund, and through that Russia-China investment fund we see a major interest in the Aramco IPO from a number of leading Chinese institutions,” Dmitriev told reporters, Bloomberg reported.

“We see significant interest to invest in the Aramco IPO from Russia, from China, and we believe that this is very good for, once again, thinking jointly about oil.”

On February 7, 2018 the United States launched an air attack against the Syrian military. This brazen aggression against the sovereign government of Syria resulted in the death of at least one hundred “forces aligned with Syrian President Bashar al-Assad” according to U.S. military officials...

Lazar’s work, his Russia boosterism and his ties to the Kremlin — he is sometimes called “Putin’s rabbi” — has helped Chabad’s Russian branch eclipse all the Jewish groups vying to reshape the country’s community of 250,000 Jews. Now Lazar heads a vast network that comprises dozens of employees and plentiful volunteers working in hundreds of Jewish institutions: schools, synagogues, community centers and kosher shops.

But Lazar and Putin’s relationship seems to go deeper than political expediency. In 2012, Lazar led the Russian leader on a tour of Jerusalem’s Western Wall. And last year Putin made Lazar a member of Russia’s prestigious Merit to the Fatherland order, the country’s highest civilian decoration and one that is rarely conferred on people who were not born in Russia. (Lazar became a Russian citizen in 2000.)

Russian financial institutions are prepared to survive without access to SWIFT (The Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication) - the global dollar-based interbank payments network - should the US and European Union follow through with threats to cut it off, according to Deputy Prime Minister Arkady Dvorkovich.

"Certainly, it is unpleasant, as it will prove a stumbling block for companies and banks, and will slow down work. It will be inevitable to deploy some aged technologies for information transfer and calculations. However, the companies are technically and psychologically ready for the shutdown as this threat was repeatedly voiced," Dvorkovich said, according to TASS and RT, adding that such a dramatic step would negatively corporations doing business in the US and Europe.

Russian Presidential Spokesman Dmitry Peskov has called on the media not to be guided by "distorted data" in connection with reports on many Russians allegedly killed in Syria.

"We urge [everyone] not to be guided by erroneous information, intentional or unintentional, and be careful about the description of such potentially important incidents in order not to be enthralled by distorted data," the Kremlin spokesman said in comments on reports on a great number of Russians allegedly killed in Syria’s Deir ez-Zor province on February 7.

HARVARD LAW PROFESSOR Laurence Tribe did not wait even 24 hours to exploit yesterday’s tragic crash of a Russian regional jet shortly after it took off from Moscow, killing all 71 people aboard.

On Twitter this morning, Tribe (pictured above in 2010 with former Vice President Joe Biden) strongly insinuated that the Russian government may have purposely sabotaged the plane, murdering all of those on board, in order to silence one of the passengers, Sergei Millian, who has been linked to a couple of figures involved in the Trump-Russia investigation.

About 1,500 foreign observers could come to monitor the upcoming presidential election in Russia in March 2018, two Russian diplomatic sources informed Izvestia. This information has also been confirmed by Russia’s Central Election commission.

"One can state with confidence that that more than 1,300 people will come. It is expected, however, that the figure will be higher, about 1,500. Foreign observers will come to Russia from virtually all corners of the globe. They will be working in all Russian regions," one diplomatic source said.

The US is ready to help stop the fighting in the Donbass, but "Russia must first choose peace."

This was stated on Tuesday, February 13, by the special representative of the US State Department on Ukraine, Kurt Volker.

A necessary condition for the end of the war, according to Volker, is Russia's decision to choose peace.

Volker noted that three years after the Minsk agreements in the Donbass, fighting is continuing.

"Yesterday was the anniversary of the signing of the Minsk accords - three years later, the war is still going on. The US is ready to help in the cessation of hostilities, but Russia must choose peace," Volker said.

The US administration has asked to allocate funds for the construction of 37 Aegis missile defense systems in Romania and Poland, the operations director of the Missile Defense Agency, Gary Pannett, said on Monday.

"Within the framework of the draft budget for the 2019 financial year, we have requested 1.8 billion dollars for the systems. The missile defense agency will provide 37 Aegis SM-3 systems to facilities in Romania and Poland, as well as on ships along the respective coasts," Pennett said at a special briefing in the Pentagon.

Russian Urals crude is now entering Venezuela at a rate of 335,000 barrels per day to supply PDVSA’s refinery in Curacao.

So far this year, Caracas has purchased 3 million barrels of Urals crude from Swiss trader Glencore.

Four tankers are scheduled to reach Curacao from Russian ports just this month, trading sources said.

PDVSA has been the contractual operator of Curacao for many years, but the contract is set to expire in 2019. Shell, the facility’s owner, has said PDVSA will not be the facility’s operator beyond the existing contract due to its failure to meet contractual obligations to perform upgrades.

The United States is trying to "connect" European countries who share Russophobic tendencies, in order to arm the Ukraine further.

This was stated in an interview with Russia 1 television channel, by Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, answering the question on why Europe is silent given the United States is supplying arms to Ukraine.

"Europe is not silent, it objects, but is quiet and unpublic. According to our information, they, in our conversation with the United States, express disagreement in response to Washington's urgent demands that Europe should join these initiatives of arming the Ukraine.

But the US is trying to lure the countries marked by their Russophobic tendencies into these projects. These are our Baltic neighbors. . .">>>
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At the same time, he added that Russia can not prohibit Americans from supplying anything to anyone.

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"I understand that my provocative thesis will not be fully accepted by all, but with regarding democracy: what we have now in the state, I can not call a democracy, even a weak one. And the only way that I see possible is, on the contrary, a dictatorship for the sake of a future democracy. Unfortunately, the swamp that now exists in Ukraine is the weak state, that many people spoke about today, but without calling things by their right names," Tuka said.

Speaking about the situation around Donbass, Tuka noted that Moscow constantly and persistently urges Ukraine to have direct dialogue with the Donbass, but the Ukrainian authorities do not intend to even discuss "dialogue with militants".

The US administration has asked to allocate funds for the construction of 37 Aegis missile defense systems in Romania and Poland, the operations director of the Missile Defense Agency, Gary Pannett, said on Monday.

"Within the framework of the draft budget for the 2019 financial year, we have requested 1.8 billion dollars for the systems. The missile defense agency will provide 37 Aegis SM-3 systems to facilities in Romania and Poland, as well as on ships along the respective coasts," Pennett said at a special briefing in the Pentagon.

A US Air Force plane has conducted reconnaissance at the western border of Russia. This is reported by the monitoring resource Mil Radar .
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Since early 2018, American reconnaissance planes have been spotted 14 times from Russia's western borders, >>>

US-BACKED strikes killed scores of Russian soldiers who were attempted to attack an American base in eastern Syria last week.

The shock claim comes from a US official who reported the deadliest confrontation between the former foes since the Cold War, with the death toll is estimated at about 100, with 200 to 300 injured.

Most of those who died in the failed attack on the base held by US and US-backed forces in Deir Ezzor, east of Euphrates River, are thought to be Russian soldiers fighting on behalf of Syrian leader Bashar al-Assad.

US Colonel Thomas F Veale, a military spokesman, said: “Coalition officials were in regular communication with Russian counterparts before, during and after the thwarted, unprovoked attack.

An activist of the "Other Russia" political organisation, Kirill Ananyev was killed in Syria during the air strike of the international coalition led by the United States. This was stated by the coordinator of the political organization, Alexander Averin.

He added that earlier, Ananiev fought as a volunteer defending the Donbass, after which he left for Syria. He was not an official soldier in the Russian military.

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Indeed, it’s not even clear the Russiagate investigation itself will be impacted. After all, the narrative may have flipped on one variable – from Trump campaign collusion to Democratic and FBI collusion – but the constant remains the same: Russia. Trump’s defenders are as insistent as his detractors that the real culprit is Russia! Russia! Russia!

Sean Hannity of Fox News has been particularly hyperventilative that the entire Steele Dossier lying at the black heart of the mess consists of “phony, fake-news Russian propaganda” and “Russian intelligence lies” from British MI6 (supposedly “former”) spymaster Christopher Steele’s “Russian sources.” Even level-headed observers like Paul Sperry and Patrick Buchanan characterize the file as a “Kremlin-aided smear job” and “Russian dirt [that] Steele was spoon-fed by old comrades in the Kremlin’s security apparatus.”

The Netherlands' foreign minister was facing a tough debate in Parliament Tuesday following his admission that he lied about attending a meeting hosted by Russian President Vladimir Putin at his country retreat more than a decade ago.

But, Minister Zijlstra just confirmed he is stepping down at the beginning of the debate in the House of Representatives.

He called it "by far the biggest mistake of my political life, the Netherlands deserves a foreign minister who is beyond any doubt."

As FD.nl reports, on Monday, the coalition seemed to want to support Zijlstra. But that became difficult when the Volkskrant reported that Zijlstra not only lied about the source of Putin's message - not he, but then Shell CEO Jeroen van der Veer was present at the meeting - but that Zijlstra also misunderstood the content of the message interpreted.

As tensions heat up in Syria between a growing number of heavily involved participants, the Russian Center for Reconciliation in Syria has stated it has been warned by sources that Jobhat al-Nusra is planning to coordinate a staged chemical weapons attack with the White Helmets for the purpose of blaming the attack on the Syrian government.

The center stated that, on Monday, it received a phone call from a resident in Serakab in Idlib province describing the incident allegedly being planned...

all can rest assured that the recent tragedy surrounding the crash of the Russian passenger flight that killed all onboard has links all the way back to Tel Aviv, that Putin knows it and that this featured prominently in the discussion that took place between the two leaders that resulted in an abrupt de-escalation of military activity on the part of the Jewish state.

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The deportation appears to bring an abrupt end to a months-long cat-and-mouse game between Saakashvili and the Ukrainian authorities.

"This person was on Ukrainian territory illegally and therefore, in compliance with all legal procedures, he was returned to the country from where he arrived," the country's border service spokesman Oleh Slobodyan said in a post on Facebook.

In a statement, Saakashvili denounced President Petro Poroshenko.

"This is not a president and not a man. This is a lowlife crook who wants to wreck Ukraine. All this shows how weak they are. We will of necessity defeat them."

How many times did Putin announce victory in Syria, pull out, and then have to go back after Washington’s forces had recuperated? Why does Putin refuse the reincorporation of the breakaway Russian provinces in Ukraine? He allowed Crimea back in because of the Russian naval base, but he has refused the Russian provinces of Donetsk and Luhansk. Consequently, the Russian people in these provinces continue to be subject to attack, and Washington has now armed its Ukrainian nazi state with weapons to reconquer the breakaway republics.

Whether or not Russia wants to acknowledge it, Russia is in a fight for her life. There is evidence that top Russian leaders are unaware of this.

Eric Zuesse notes that only Syria and Russia complain about Washington’s illegal occupation of Syrian territory, an occupation that has no UN authorization and is a complete and total violation of international law, and Israel’s continual attacks on Syria.

Washington’s continuing support for war against the legitimate government of Syria and support for Israeli and terrorist attacks on Syrian and Russian forces are undermining Russia’s efforts to bring peace to the region. Zuesse also notes that Washington and its UK puppet block all UN action against Washington’s illegality.

Zuesse is correct. But is the continuation of Washington’s campaign against Syria and Russia largely the fault of Russia? Stephen Lendman makes a case that it is Russia’s fault.

Webmaster's Commentary:

I would argue that Russia doesn't wish to get into direct military conflict with the US in Syria, because it understands that this could well generate more wars with the US, which for reasons I will articulate later, which the US and NATO appear to be gung-ho to fight, putting Russia in the position of being forced to fight both in Syria, and in Ukraine.

Putin is moving heaven and earth to avoid that happening, understanding full well that the current anti-Russian hysteria in Congress and beyond, may well be a prelude to the larger war he is trying to prevent.

Putin has a very real world understanding of just what a world war does to the people who fight it; the civilian populations enduring it and the bitter physical results to places which have been utterly destroyed by wars; and because he has a very clear understanding of what World War II did to his country, he does not want to see it repeated, not in Ukraine, Syria, or Iran.

Steve Lendman, whose work I greatly respect, and frequently link to, needs to understand the following; like a giant ant, the US government is "trapped in the amber" of an absolutely unrepayable debt load, toward which the current spending legislation is adding, big-time.

The US government desperately needs a war with which to attempt to "misdirect" the American people about the reasons why their standards of living have slipped horrendously, as US government debt grows, unchecked,and there are many in the "bowels of power" in DC, who believe that a good war will be just the ticket to get the US government out of its debtload, and back on its feet.

Israel, with its recent attacks on Syria, against Syrian and the (alleged) Iranian presence will hardly stop now. They will continue these attacks until someone strikes back, or, allegedly has struck back, courtesy of an Israeli/US generated false flag.

Sooner or later, the US military will be called upon by Israel for a general invasion of Syria, "to defend Israel's right to exist", and to affect regime change in Damascus; The optics here mean that Iran most probably will not let this stand, so we will see Iran join the fray as well, on Syria's side.

This is where NATO will most likely be assisting the Ukrainians militarily, to attempt to gain back some of their purpose and credibility, and the US has already sided with Ukraine should the conflict escalate. After all, President Trump has signed off on supplying Ukraine with anti-tank weapons.US to send anti-tank missiles to Ukraine By now, those weapons should have been delivered to the Ukrainian military.

So we will, I believe, have Russia - and the US - fighting on several different fronts, with NATO fighting against Russia in Ukraine, assisted by the US; Syrian, Iran, and Russia, fighting the US and Israel in Syria (and possibly against Iran) in a major war there.

I would like to hope to hell that I am absolutely wrong on this assessment; however, current events, particularly the major strike by the Israel's IDF against Syria last week, compels me to conclude, at the moment, that this is how the geopolitics of the next great war are going to play out.

‘North American Dead End’: Lawmaker proposes new name for US embassy street in Moscow

A lawmaker from the nationalist LDPR has proposed renaming the Moscow street where the US embassy is located as ‘North American Dead End’ – and City Hall says it intends to consider this option.

MP Mikhail Degtyaryov, who currently chairs the lower house Committee for Sports, Tourism and Youth, recently came up with the initiative to rename an alley in the direct vicinity of the US embassy in Moscow to ‘North American Dead End,’ so that the embassy’s address would officially become ‘North American Dead End, 1.’

Russia could sell S-400 air defense systems to the United States if the US side was interested, Russia's security would not be compromised, CEO of Russia's Rostec state corporation Sergey Chemezov told the Washington Post newspaper in an interview.

"The S-400 is not an offensive system; it is a defensive system. We can sell it to Americans if they want to. So, there is really no issue from the strategic point of view," Chemezov was quoted as saying in an interview published on Saturday.

The head of Rostec said selling S-400 to a NATO member did not compromise Russia's security, when asked what the reasoning was behind the sale of the systems to Turkey, a member of the alliance.

The Russian Foreign Ministry has called on the global community to respect Syria's sovereignty and the territorial integrity of the countries of the Middle East following the aerial attacks of Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) against targets in central Syria.

"Moscow is deeply concerned with the latest developments and attacks on Syria. The danger of the escalation of tensions within and around the de-escalation zones, which have become an important factor in reducing violence in Syria, is of particular concern," the Foreign Ministry stated on its website.

Enemy commando raids and conventional strikes are the most likely scenarios of war against Russia. The use of nuclear weapons is an unlikely outcome, the Russian Emergencies Ministry said in a report.

The comprehensive 164-page paper released by the emergencies ministry (EMERCOM) describes in detail how the Russian authorities would respond to disasters caused by enemy strikes. One notable passage was hidden deep in the middle of the lengthy document.

In an armed conflict, “the use of weapons of mass destruction, including nuclear weapons, is unlikely,” the EMERCOM report states. The likeliest scenario would involve “the use of modern conventional weapons as well as operations by Special Forces.”

" ... upon their arrival in the US Russian Jews would paint the USSR and Russia with a broad brush loaded with dark colors: oppression, antisemitism, pogroms, plus the general backwardness, drunkenness and awfulness.

Had they resisted the urge to play the victim, their narrative might, by default, become something like this:

'We wrecked Russia, rearranged it to our advantage, made out like bandits, pretty much bankrupted the place… and so now we are over here in the US, together with our prized possessions, elderly relatives and pets, claiming to be refugees, and are ready to do it again.'